Re: CMM 1200: Charger or Circuit Breaker, or ... ?

Since there has been no follow-up to my last post I suspect no one cares but I haven't yet done anything with either of the B&D mowers. I DID buy an Earthwise mower (with a dead battery, of course) a couple of weeks ago and I had to totally destroy the plastic shroud to get it off to access the battery. Even then I had to use a pair of large screwdrivers to remove the battery. I ended up scrapping the entire mower except for the motor itself as that was all I really wanted.

Anyway, I later found that the battery had some bulges in the case, probably why I had to pry it out of the holder. Bulging usually denotes a battery that is badly sulphated and while it would take a charge it had no capacity. I connected a battery desulphator to it and I am letting it attempt to repair the sulphation, without having much confidence that it will. I'll leave it on the device for about a month and then do some testing.

Re: CMM 1200: Charger or Circuit Breaker, or ... ?

Originally Posted by Luana

Since there has been no follow-up to my last post I suspect no one cares but I haven't yet done anything with either of the B&D mowers. I DID buy an Earthwise mower (with a dead battery, of course) a couple of weeks ago and I had to totally destroy the plastic shroud to get it off to access the battery. Even then I had to use a pair of large screwdrivers to remove the battery. I ended up scrapping the entire mower except for the motor itself as that was all I really wanted.

Anyway, I later found that the battery had some bulges in the case, probably why I had to pry it out of the holder. Bulging usually denotes a battery that is badly sulphated and while it would take a charge it had no capacity. I connected a battery desulphator to it and I am letting it attempt to repair the sulphation, without having much confidence that it will. I'll leave it on the device for about a month and then do some testing.

Please keep us updated! I would like to know how it goes. I am curious - what do you have planned for the motor from the Earthwise, some sort of upgrade to the 1200?

Re: CMM 1200: Charger or Circuit Breaker, or ... ?

After about a month, maybe five full weeks, I connected the Earthwise battery to the CMM1200. It did start although it sounded slow. I connected the Earthwise battery condition indicator and when stopped it indicated a full charge but as soon as I started the motor it dropped to the red (dead battery) indication. That meant the month of "rehabilitation", during which I twice used the charger to ensure it was as charged as possible, was a failure.

I took the battery, control board (with charging circuit), upper handle (mechanical control switch) and motor from the CMM1000 and cut up the rest of the old mower. I then brazed the handle bolts onto the inner holes to allow me to more easily unscrew the handwheels for folding the handles. I have set the battery (more than fifteen years old) into the CMM1200 and I also replaced the original black oxide sheet-metal screws holding the upper half to the lower half with stainless steel screws to reduce the chance of rust destroying the head slots. The old screws were Torx head and almost impossible to remove because of rust. I temporarily connected the battery and noticed a fair amount of sparking at the motor brushes so I decided to get a spare set of brushes to see how worn the original brushes have become. Since I received the new brushes I have been plagued with some medical problems and have not been able to do anything with the mower.

what do you have planned for the motor from the Earthwise, some sort of upgrade to the 1200?

For all intents and purposes the motor from the Earthwise is identical to the motor in the B&D mowers. What I have in mind is using the motor(s) with my gasoline mower/tractor conversion either to use as individual blade motors on a 36-40 inch twin-blade deck or else to use them to power brush-cutter blades that I will mount on a boom from the tractor. The same medical problems I mentioned before have also kept me from that project.

Re: CMM 1200: Charger or Circuit Breaker, or ... ?

Originally Posted by Luana

Since there has been no follow-up to my last post I suspect no one cares but I haven't yet done anything with either of the B&D mowers. I DID buy an Earthwise mower (with a dead battery, of course) a couple of weeks ago and I had to totally destroy the plastic shroud to get it off to access the battery. Even then I had to use a pair of large screwdrivers to remove the battery. I ended up scrapping the entire mower except for the motor itself as that was all I really wanted.

Anyway, I later found that the battery had some bulges in the case, probably why I had to pry it out of the holder. Bulging usually denotes a battery that is badly sulphated and while it would take a charge it had no capacity. I connected a battery desulphator to it and I am letting it attempt to repair the sulphation, without having much confidence that it will. I'll leave it on the device for about a month and then do some testing.

A battery bulging is due to gassing and nothing else.
Gassing comes from overcharging and nothing else.
Automatic battery chargers are notorious for overcharging batteries.
The few batteries that I need to keep fully charges are on a plug in timmer that limits the charging 1/2 hour day

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